Zacharias, Aron (1871-1928)

Aron and Margaretha (Bergen) Zacharias with their child. Photocredit: Cornelius C. Hamm, reproduced with permission via Doell, The Bergthaler Mennonite Church of Saskatchewan, p. 19.

Aron Zacharias was an Ältester of the Saskatchewan-Bergthaler in the Rosthern, Saskatchwan region. Elected in 1908, he led part of his church to Paraguay in 1926, but died before he could reach the new colony.

Zacharias was born on 24 January 1871 in imperial Russia (likely in either the Fürstenland or Chortitza Colony). In 1876 he came with his parents to the West Reserve, Manitoba where they were members of the Reinländer church. In 1893 he was baptized and moved to the Rosthern area of what later became Saskatchewan. In 1895 he married Margaretha Bergen and in 1903 he was ordained as a minister in the newly formed Bergthaler church in Saskatchewan.

In 1908, the Ältester of the Rosthern Saskatchewan-Bergthaler, Kornelius Epp, left the church in Rosthern after a controversy over the adoption of modern clothing. The church elected Zacharias as a successor and Ältester Abraham Doerksen of the Sommerfelder ordained him in the fall of 1908.

As an Ältester, Zacharias attempted to lead his church in a selective accommodation to a modernizing world. Adoption of automobiles and telephones were particularly thorny matters. In consultation with the Ältesten of the Chortitzer and Sommerfelder churches in Manitoba, and unlike the Reinländer (also known as Old Colony) church in both provinces, Zacharias’s church complied with the Canadian government in its registration of adult males during World War I, after assurances from Canadian officials that Mennonites would not be subject to a draft. However, alongside the Reinländer, he resisted pressure from the Saskatchewan government around the same time to introduce any English into the private, German-language elementary schools the Mennonites in Saskatchewan operated; some sources suggest that the extent of this recalcitrance was likely part of what motivated the Saskatchewan government to act as coercively as it did in the coming years on the school issue.

In addition to his ministry in the Rosthern area, Zacharias played a leadership role in the first few years of the newly founded Mennonite Church at Lost River. After he nullified a congregational vote over where to build a new church building in 1914 a church split took place. Zacharias presided over the formation of a new Saskatchewan-Bergthaler church in the area and ordained its new ministers.

In 1917 the Saskatchewan government passed mandatory school attendance legislation and then in 1919 began a concerted campaign to shut down the Mennonite private schools, thereby forcing Mennonite children to attend public and secular English-speaking schools with a nationalistic and militaristic curriculum. The Reinländer church strongly opposed these schools and excommunicated members whose children attended them, despite the fact that they faced steep fines when their children did not attend, to the point that some families were near to starvation. Under Zacharias, the Saskatchewan-Bergthaler in Rosthern opposed the public schools but did not excommunicate their members who complied with them.

In response to the education crisis, many Mennonite groups sought to relocate to a new homeland where they would have autonomy over the schooling of their children. In his exploration of the emigration option, Zacharias worked together with the Chortitzer and Sommerfelder churches in Manitoba, which shared an ecclesial lineage with the Saskatchewan-Bergthaler. Zacharias organized the Saskatchewan portion of a joint delegation with these two churches which investigated settlement opportunities in both Paraguay and Mexico in 1921. The delegation returned with the recommendation that the church remove to Paraguay. This recommendation swayed Zacharias, while most other emigrating groups of Mennonites from Saskatchewan chose Mexico.

Delays with financing the emigration pushed back its beginning until the end of 1926, which dampened enthusiasm for the migration. On 14 December 1926, Zacharias led 195 of his followers to Paraguay, another 32 following behind shortly thereafter, a total of approximately eighteen percent of Zacharias's church. A series of delays and disasters beset the new immigrants when they disembarked at Puerto Casado, some 200 kilometers away from their new land. It took sixteen months before the immigrants could begin to settle their land and in the meantime an epidemic broke out and nearly 200 people died. Another 350 people or so returned to Canada. Zacharias himself died on 10 October 1928 while en route to the new colony.

Accounts of this trying period for the Mennonites in Paraguay make almost no mention of Zacharias’s leadership or activities, a contrast to the many sources that offer significant comment on and praise for the leadership of Martin C. Friesen, Ältester of the much larger Chortitzer group (and de facto leader of the Sommerfelder). While we do not know what role Zacharias may have played, we do know that, as difficulties mounted, discord grew between the different Mennonite groups gathered at Puerto Casado and that those from Saskatchewan remained separate from the rest of the settlement after the establishment of Menno Colony, all of them settling in the new village of Bergthal and maintaining a separate church organization. It may also be noteworthy that a highly disproportionate number of those immigrants who returned to Canada before the new colony was established were part of the Saskatchewan Bergthaler group.

Bibliography

Doell, Leonard. "Bergthaler Mennonites at Carrot River." In Church, Family and Village: Essays on Mennonite Life on the West Reserve, edited by Adolf Ens et al. Winnipeg: Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2001.

Doell, Leonard. "Emigration to Paraguay, 1921-1930: Preserving the Faith." In Hague-Osler Mennonite Reserve, 1895-1995, edited by Jacob G. Guenter et al. Hepburn: Hague-Osler Reserve Book Committee, 1995. Pp. 390-391.

Doell, Leonard. The Bergthaler Mennonite Church of Saskatchewan, 1892-1975. CMBC Publications, 1987. Pp. 13-34, 109.

Doell, Leonard. "The Bergthaler Mennonite Emigration to Mexico and Paraguay." Saskatchewan Mennonite Historian 27, no. 2 (2022): 13-21.

Ens, Adolf. Subjects or Citizens? The Mennonite Experience in Canada, 1870-1925. University of Ottawa Press, 1994. Pp. 214-217.

Ens, Adolf and Ernest N. Braun. "Emigration to Paraguay 1926 to 1927." In Settlers of the East Reserve, edited by Adolf Ens et al. Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2009. Pp. 323-324.

Friesen, M.W. Canadian Mennonites Conquer a Wilderness: The Beginning and Development of the Menno Colony, First Mennonite Settlement in South America. Translated by Christel Wiebe. Historical Committee of the Menno Colony, 2009. Pp. 27-28.

GRANDMA (The Genealogical Registry and Database of Mennonite Ancestry) Database, 5.00 ed. Fresno, CA: California Mennonite Historical Society, 2006: #157879.

Kouwenhoven, Arlette. The Fehrs: Four Centuries of Mennonite Migration, translated by Lesley Fast and Kerry Fast. Leiden: Winco, 2013. P. 174.

Stoesz, Edgar and Muriel T. Stackley. Garden in the Wilderness: Mennonite Communities in the Paraguayan Chaco, 1927-1997. Winnipeg: CMBC Publications, 1999. P. 28

Toews, Bernhard. "Life and Travel Remembrances of Bernhard Toews," translated by Delbert Plett. Preservings 16 (June 2000): 33-37.

Author(s)	Gerald Ens
Date Published	2025

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MLA style

Ens, Gerald. "Zacharias, Aron (1871-1928)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 2025. Web. 19 Jan 2026. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Zacharias,_Aron_(1871-1928)&oldid=180613.

APA style

Ens, Gerald. (2025). Zacharias, Aron (1871-1928). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 19 January 2026, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Zacharias,_Aron_(1871-1928)&oldid=180613.

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